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In the May 20 Life, etc., section, Susie Wilde shares the story about bonding with her mother, who has Alzheimer's, by reading fairy tales with her. Wilde shares here her list of favorite fairy tale authors and illustrators. Share your own favorites!

Other illustrators who you can count on for flights of fancy:
K.Y. Craft: “Cinderella,” “Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave”
Trina Schart Hyman: “The Serpent Slayer and Other Stories of Strong Women,” “Sense Pass King,” “Iron Hans”
Laurel Long: “The Magic Nesting Doll,” “The Lady and the Lion”
P.J. Lynch: “East O’ the Sun and West O’ the Moon,” “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”
Gennady Spirin: “The Tale of the Firebird,” “The Crane Wife”
Lisbeth Zwerger: “Little Red Cap,” “Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales”
Jerry Pinkney: “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Talking Eggs,” “The Nightingale”
Susan Jeffers: “Thumbelina,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “The Snow Queen”
Paul Zelinsky: “Rapunzel,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Hansel and Gretel”

Other authors devoted to fairy tales:
Demi: “The Hungry Coat,” “The Greatest Treasure,” “The Empty Pot”
Tomie dePaola: “Adelita,” “Fin M’Coul,” “Days of the Blackbird”
Virginia Hamilton: "Drylongso," “The People Could Fly,” “The Girl Who Spun Gold”
William Hooks: "Moss Gown," "Freedom’s Fruit," "The Ballad of Belle Dorcas"
Eric Kimmel: "The Frog Princess," "Count Silvernose," "Three Sacks of Truth"
Rafe Martin: "The Rough-Faced Girl," "The Shark God," "The Storytelling Princess"
Robert San Souci: "Sootface," "Sukey and the Mermaid," "Cedrillon," "Brave Margaret"

Got a quibble with a book review? Did a reviewer love what you hate (or, at least, didn't love all that much ...) Hate what you love? Share your thoughts here. Let us know the name of the book and the author and when the review ran.

Have you been to the circus? What is it like? Powerful, thrilling, mesmerizing? Frightening, overwhelming, a bit sad? Our own feelings about the circus play into our reading of Gruen's book.

If we're mesmerized, Gruen's take on the circus might call to mind the Wizard of Oz, when the Wizard says, right before the gig is up: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

Gruen flatly ignores the wizard, showing us that even though we might dream of running away to the circus, it's not all fun & games & cotton candy.

 What is the effect of seeing behind the curtain in Gruen's book? Is it empowering? Illuminating? A lot like your own working life?

Mondays, in particular, find me yearning to do nothing more than lead elephants, horses, giraffes to water. We all have escape careers -- and who hasn't dreamed of running away to the circus? Sara Gruen does it, and brings us along with her. (The dream career of one of my grad-school professors was to sit on a dock by a river. And that's it. If somebody needed bait, she might point to a bucket, but she wouldn't scoop out the worms.) 

A real dream career might be Sara Gruen's crafting of "Water for Elephants" -- spinning a story out of the facts of circus living.

How'd she do? I don't want to overdirect you, but you'll find some discussion questions here and here Pick one, or select a topic of your own.

And, of course, we're assuming that everyone who's at this site has finished reading the book - so spoil away!

In the decade that we have published original fiction and poetry in Sunday 

Reader, several works have played around with that crazy little thing called love. Here are a dozen, like long-stemmed roses -- our gift to you on Valentine's Day.

The Fourth Date by Megan Roberts

The Work of Love by Paul Jones

A Safe Place by Christopher Bundy 

The Sting by Katie Rose Guest

The Big Beautiful by Pamela Duncan 

Wedge by Shellie Zacharia

Rings of Fire by Michael McFee

Nautilus by Jane K. Andrews

How Quickly by James Applewhite 

In-between by Louis Gallo 

The Lesser Light by Paul Jones

The Interview by Daun Daemon 

OK, here are the picks for our virtual Book Club. In making selctions, I chose books that are available in paperback, to make joining in more affordable. Links are to Amazon.com, for ease, but we encouarge you to support your LIBS (Local Independent Book Store) whenever you can.

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver. A woman explores two paths through her future in narratives that initially diverge, then converge. Shriver, a Tarheel by birth, lives in London.

Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen. Algonquin's baby became a runaway bestseller when it was released in paperback -- am I the only person who hasn't read it already?

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. This story of an Afghan-American returning to Kabul was a terrific hit in hardback and is now a movie.

 Leave a reply with your vote! 

The Semi-Finalists in the Amazon.Com Breakthrough Novel Contest — an online quest for the next Great American Novel — are here. The winner of this contest receives publication by Penguin. And — well, what else is there? OK, there's money — a $25,000 advance.

Several Carolina authors are among the semifinalists. And here's where you come in. Download a 5,000-word excerpt from a novel, then rate and review it. Those voted to stay on the virtual island move on to the 100 Top Semi-Finalists. From these top 100 Semi-Finalists, 10 finalists will be selected by Penguin. Excerpts from the 10 finalists will be posted online and Amazon.Com customers will vote to select the Grand Prize winner.

You can be a winner, too. Customers who rate and review at least 25 semi-finalist excerpts will be entered in a contest, in which three people will receive an Amazon Kindle, a $2,000 Amazon gift certificate and a Hewlett-Packard.

Get all the nitty-gritty details here.

And here are links to the Carolina semi-finalists:

RALEIGH

The World's All Nations
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00121SFOY
Mike Jasper - Wake Forest - mjasper@gmail.com

Pinocchio is Punching You
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0011G9Y1I
Alex Wilson - Carrboro (Triangle), NC - alex@alexwilson.com

The Wet Nurse's Tale
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0011G9XOQ
Erica Eisdorfer – Carrboro

ASHEVILLE

TUCKASEEGEE
http://amazon.com/dp/B0011G9Y5E
Betty Cloer Wallace – Asheville - bettycloerwallace@runbox.com

Girls, Girls, Out
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00124COYI
Lockie Hunter – Asheville - lockie@lockiehunter.com

Dragonmark
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001200BZG
Douglas A. Sanburn – Asheville

CHARLOTTE

'51 Rocks - Batboy on the Worst Team Ever
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00124COKW
Matt Musson – Charlotte – Musson1@hotmail.com

The Sable Curtain
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0011G9XPK
K. F. Jones – Charlotte - secretary4me@hotmail.com

Flight of the Fireflies
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00122I1J2
Lena Joy Rose – Matthews, NC - info@lenajoy.com

The Prophecy
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00121WDWY
Mai Christy Thao – Charlotte - maichristythao@gmail.com

GREENSBORO

Casting Off
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00122I1O2
Nicole R. Dickson – Greensboro – nande@seanet.com

SOUTH CAROLINA

Under the Mississippi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0011ZCAVU
Lou Dischler - Spartanburg, SC – author@delocorp.net

Wagner at Midnight
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00121WEJQ
Katherine Guckenberger - Charleston, SC – kaki.kirk@gmail.com

STEALING FIRE
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00124CO4I
Susan Sloate - Mt. Pleasant, SC

Cast your vote for the next book for the N&O Book Club!